


nouveau départ

by troubled



Series: hard reset [3]
Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ
Genre: Age Reversal, Alternate Reality, Older Shim Changmin, Younger Jung Yunho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 09:29:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17485601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/troubled/pseuds/troubled
Summary: how do you fix something you've never owned?siwon tries his best. but he's not changmin. and he'll never be.





	nouveau départ

 

Siwon wakes up sometime in the afternoon, between dreams of megaphones and halos and the world falling apart around him. The sky is cast in grey-iron, thunder rumbling through metal skyscrapers and perfectly-aligned city. He can hear whistles of wind cutting across buildings and people, shrill in warning, and Siwon burrows into his blankets, carefully wraps his arms around skinny waist and hipbones. He sighs a prayer into the stretch of warm skin.

Siwon presses his fingers over Yunho’s wet cheeks and kisses his trembling shoulder.

 

*

 

“Hey.”

Siwon looks up from the laptop, muting his Skype call with Jiwon. Her face on his screen turns puzzled for a second, before she catches sight of Changmin. Siwon angles her away. “What’s up?”

Changmin’s face is a careful blank. Siwon can still see the curl of his fingers on the doorframe, nails biting into wood. He leans back into his chair as Changmin takes the next few seconds to deliberate. “Are you and Yunho—”

The sentence trails off into a loud silence.

Siwon watches the clench of Changmin’s jaw.

“The group will get into trouble if anyone finds out.” It’s neutral ground, a reasonable concern. Changmin has always been good with words and Siwon buys none of it. There’s a kind of desperate wildness in Changmin’s eyes that betrays him, that makes him see-through. “Management will flip their shit.”

Siwon shrugs, remembers soft smiles and sweet _good morning_ s and doesn’t think that he can give those up now. His voice is steady, concrete to Changmin’s quicksilver when he says, “We’ll be careful. Don’t worry.”

“So it’s true?”

Siwon hears the question, reads between the lines enough to know Changmin doesn’t come for answers. Changmin needs affirmation in the negatives, needs to hear _nothing nothing nothing_ from Siwon’s mouth. Changmin needs the negatives to breathe easy, so he can go out there and pretend nothing is wrong. Siwon would’ve felt sorry for Changmin, but he was there when Yunho cried himself to sleep. His priorities are already skewed beyond control.

“I just want Yunho to be happy.” It surprises him how vicious he sounds when he adds, “Isn’t that what you’d want for your girl?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Changmin’s hand drops to his side. His fingers are fisted, tight. “We broke up.”

Siwon thinks it’s a joke, but Changmin isn’t laughing and chasm between them gets wider.

 

*

 

Yunho sings and dances and grins, grin, grins with a heart made of pretty, broken fairytales.

Yunho shines the brightest, breaks the easiest and Siwon’s fingertips are stained crimson when he tries to pick up the pieces. It bleeds onto his fancy clothes, seeps under his skin until they’re all covered in the same sickly shade and he ignores the bile at the back of his throat when Yunho holds his hand. Smiles that special, shy smile Siwon pretends only belongs to him.

Siwon never thought of himself as self-destructive.

Now. He’s not quite sure.

 

*

 

Changmin corners Yunho during one of their photoshoots, obscured behind gigantic geometrical shapes that serve as part of their set. Yunho’s head is bowed and he’s chewing on his bottom lip, back pressed against the wall. Changmin’s brows are furrowed and there’s a sharpness in the shape of his mouth that Siwon doesn’t like. He isn’t really thinking when he strides towards them, jerks Yunho away in a heartbeat. Siwon sees hurt and longing, and he stares at Changmin instead, fingers clenched tight and bruising around Yunho’s forearm.

Siwon can almost feel the wince contorting Yunho’s face, but he’s too angry to care.

“They need you outside,” he says. Their bright outfits a mismatch to the settling shadows and if he’s anywhere but here and now, Siwon maybe finds it hilarious. “Your solo pictures.”

Changmin grits his teeth and reaches out, always stubborn because Shim Changmin never loses. His hand settles on Yunho’s chest, somewhere close to Yunho’s heart. “I’m talking with maknae.”

“You can do it some other time.” Siwon means _not when I’m around_. Yunho flinches when Changmin sneers at them. “Photographer’s waiting.”

“I’m talking with maknae _right now_ ,” Changmin repeats, eyes flashing. “Ask Heechul-hyung to go first.”

“Changmin—”

“Hyung, I don’t mind.” Siwon turns to Yunho, caught by surprise. He sees the apologetic curl of Yunho's downturned lips. “I-It’ll be quick.”

Changmin’s grin is wide and triumphant.

Siwon stiffly walks to where Kyuhyun is watching them, fingers still aching from being shrugged loose.

 

*

 

The pancake has a smiley face drizzled in shaky lines of maple syrup, a generous tribute from the girl behind the counter with her wide grin and nervous giggles. Kyuhyun thanks her politely but doesn’t smile and Siwon wonders why they’re sitting in a cafe at seven in the morning when it’s one of those rare days they don’t have any schedule.

“You’re being childish.”  
  
Siwon stirs his cup of coffee and stares at the hard lines on Kyuhyun’s face. “You don’t know anything.”

“I know enough,” Kyuhyun says and Siwon doesn’t like the way Kyuhyun’s lips are pressed into a thin, sad line. “Yunho isn’t a prize to be fought over.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Kyuhyun picks up a fork and after a second of silence, smears the smiley face into abstract patterns and ribbons of gold. He looks tired and his shoulders sag a little bit too much from the weight of the world. “Because Changmin won’t listen and someone has to stop before everything,” Siwon hears _Yunho_ in the brief pause, the undertone of Kyuhyun’s voice, “breaks apart.”

Siwon drinks his coffee black and if his smile tastes bitter, that’s probably the reason.

“I’m already picking up the pieces, Kyu.”

 

*

 

Yunho stumbles over when no one’s looking and Siwon’s there to catch his tears when they fall.

“I’m sorry, hyung.”

“Shh… it’s okay. I’m here. I’m here.”

“I’m _sorry_.”

Siwon doesn’t ask why Yunho apologises. Siwon doesn’t ask why Yunho reeks of Changmin’s perfume.

Siwon doesn’t ask why Yunho bruises without even being touched.

 

*

 

Heechul wants to _talk_.

“So what’s up with the two of you?”

Kyuhyun shifts on the couch and pretends to be interested in the news, something about a lot of people dying in another part of the world even when he can’t pronounce the name of the country properly. Heechul’s leaning against the kitchen counter, uncharacteristically serious as he stares at Siwon and Changmin. Siwon might be the leader, but Heechul is older and seniority breaches walls and boundaries.

“What are you talking about, hyung?” Siwon tries the nonchalant route, since Changmin had clammed up the moment Heechul asked them over. Changmin’s eyes are narrowed and stormy, the tilt of his jaw mirroring the stubbornness that gets him in trouble with management from time to time. “Everything’s fine.”

Heechul quirks an eyebrow and Kyuhyun burrows his face into the cushion squeezed between his knees. “We’re not blind. Whatever the fuck you’re fighting about, _stop it_.”

“It’s nothing,” Changmin cuts in. “It’s just a bet between me and Siwon-hyung.”

Changmin turns to Siwon and his smile is a sardonic slash of lips and teeth.

“Right, hyung?”

Siwon isn’t sure who’s keeping score, but he feels like he’d just lost a round.

 

*

 

Siwon finds Yunho sitting in the balcony, clothes wet from lashings of raindrops and his head cradled between his knees. Siwon can’t really tell if he’s listening to thunders or sobs because his heart is rattling too much for everything to make sense. His shirt and jeans are soaked through by the time he crouches in front of Yunho. He blinks rain from his eyes, steadies the chaotic scramble of worries in his head before it spills from his lips.

“Yunho.”

Siwon’s hands find the angles of Yunho’s face and he coaxes them, pries them away from the fold of knees until he sees empty eyes and shadows, etched too deep into the corners of Yunho’s mouth. His fingers slipside over water and skin and Siwon counts the pieces he might have missed as Yunho quivers under his touch.

“Yunho, what are you doing?”

The storm rages and screams and Yunho laughs, laughs until his voice cracks and raindrops run salty perfect on his cheeks, over the tips of Siwon’s fingers. It’s a lifetime until Changmin finds them and Heechul shouts something hysterical, hands pulling Siwon away from Yunho and Kyuhyun has a terrified look on his face when Yunho collapses without Siwon there to hold him up.

Siwon realises for the first time that even if he manages to collect all the pieces, he still won’t be able to piece them back together.

Siwon realises he can’t remember what Yunho’s heart used to look like.

 

*

 

**end**

 

**Author's Note:**

> there be [twitter](https://twitter.com/voracyous).


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